


Gun-Back

by ArdeaWrites



Series: Resonant Crowbar [5]
Category: Half-Life
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Vortigaunt 'entanglement', White Forest setting, massage fic, navigating PTSD, navigating trauma, post-HL2, utterly gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26500636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArdeaWrites/pseuds/ArdeaWrites
Summary: After a hunter chase around White Forest, Freeman reconciles himself to a long night of sore muscles and a broken HEV. Barney can't fix the HEV but he knows a thing or two about back pain. He also knows a thing or two about wound-up soldiers and what Freeman's capable of. Working out a knot is going to require a little untying on both sides.This is what passes for "fluff" in the Crowbar continuity!Chapter 1: Calhoun POVChapter 2: Freeman POV - rating bumped up for indications of self-harm & flashbacks
Series: Resonant Crowbar [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855192
Comments: 30
Kudos: 104





	1. Chapter 1

Gordon was sitting on a steel bench that had once been in a gym somewhere, half-in half-out of his exoskeleton. He’d gotten the top half off alright and arranged it piece by piece down the bench on either side, the crowbar near at hand between the forearm plates and the gloves. His undershirt was damp and sweat-stained and may have once been white, but hadn’t been that color in a few years. 

Calhoun watched him from the doorway. Barney knew Freeman knew he was there, but wasn’t acknowledging him right now. Fair enough. It’d been a long day, and Barney didn't take the silent treatment personally. 

The day had started at about 3 AM, when a proximity alarm had informed the base at large of a wandering hunter in sector 4B. There’d been a chase, a general killing of the hunter by him, Freeman, Vance and five other rebels, and then the discovery it hadn’t come alone. Barney had had a justified moment of panic, envisioning anther hunter/strider attack like the one preceding the rocket launch, but turned out it was just five of the monsters disconnected from their governing network, wandering around in an uncoordinated pack and trying to kill anything that wasn’t Combine. It had taken all day to cat-and-mouse the hunters through the woods, lead them off one by one to be trapped and killed. The triumphant little party had reached the White Forest gates right about sunset, tired, hungry, but without loss of life. Cause for celebration, or at least a drink and a good night’s sleep, which was what Barney had been anticipating for the whole cross-country hike back in. 

But Alyx had asked him to keep an eye on Freeman, said he wasn’t moving well, and now the White Forest home-brew would have to wait. Freeman had limped during most of the hike back but had waved away Alyx’s requests that they stop and address the problem. Back at base he had again refused her offer of help with the HEV and signed to her that he was uninjured, _I’m fine, see you tomorrow._

Freeman speak for "please go away."

She had confessed to Barney in the hallway outside the locker room that she was tracking pain from him, distinct from her own bruises and two hunter-bullet grazes. Something with the Vort magic left them both a little overly sensitive to the other one’s existence, and if she said Freeman hurt, then Barney believed her. At his insistence she’d gone to Medical and to find her father. The hunter hunt had taken a lot out of her; the Vortigaunts had healed her body well enough but they hadn’t rid her of the memories, and by her own logic, he said, if she got the help and rest she needed it’d only do Freeman good too. 

But he didn’t have the same kind of routine worked out with Freeman that Alyx had. He wasn’t going to be sitting there helping remove the HEV piece by piece, because for one he had no idea how all the bits went together and for another… well. He wasn’t afraid of Freeman, but he was plenty respectful of the man’s personal space. Especially right now, with post-adrenaline fatigue settling in on them both. He was too tired to navigate the minefield that was Freeman’s bubble, and Freeman was too tired to be trusted to defuse that minefield from his side. But the guy wasn’t making much progress on his own. He’d stopped de-HEV’ing and was flexing his right shoulder, elbow up, left hand wrapped over the side of his own neck. 

Barney knew the movement. That hand-on-the-collarbone shoulder-rotating said ‘my back hurts.’ He’d built up the stamina and the right muscles and a patch of thick, calloused skin over the bone where the gun braced, but it had taken a while- months, years. The ache just under the shoulder blade, the tight feeling in the upper arm, the wrist and hand half-numb from being locked in a stress position for hours, and none of it helped by anticipation of violence. 

“Hey, back giving you trouble?” he asked, because Freeman wasn’t going to ask for help unless the whole arm fell off. And maybe not even then. 

Freeman eyed him, then nodded. Just once. ‘Man of few words’ still applied, even when they weren’t out-loud words. That look though- what had that been about? Threat assessment? He thought they’d gotten past that back in City 17, but it _had_ been a long day. 

Well, now that he knew, what was he going to do about it. He ran a hand through his hair and let out a breath. Too tired for this. Too tired to be debating how best to walk up behind a man he’d trust at his back without question, in any battle, but apparently- 

_Don’t be an idiot,_ he told himself, sternly. He was stupid tired, and so was Freeman, and as he watched, Freeman stretched his shoulders and his spine made a series of angry noises, and he stopped just short of being able to reach some part on the ankle joint. He tried to bend the knee and it wouldn’t bend. Tried to reach the joint again and hissed. 

Calhoun sighed. “Can I help?” 

Freeman paused again, then raised his hand and signed yes over his shoulder. Barney wasn’t completely fluent in sign language but he thought the motion looked a little begrudging. 

He crossed the ten feet of dirty cement, making half a circle out of it so he wouldn’t approach in a blind spot. Freeman wouldn’t be the only rebel to have pulled a muscle or just tweaked something silly while stalking around with a gun. Soldiers tended to put themselves into stress positions carrying a firearm at the ready for too long, and it wreaked havoc on the back. 

But dealing with it involved rubbing the offending muscle back into compliance, and _that_ required contact. Contact he wasn’t sure the man in front of him wanted any part of. But he’d walked himself over here and he’d made the offer with his own big mouth, and he was man enough to make good on it until told otherwise. 

“Can I take a look at the knee joint?” he asked, as he slowly lowered himself to a crouch beside the extended, armored legs. He wouldn’t know what he was looking at but the HEV knee was safer ground to start on than the unprotected back. Freeman indicated permission, so he manipulated the offending location just enough to verify yes, the kneecap plate was knocked out of place and wedged firmly against the top of the shin plate and no, he had no idea how to fix it without making it worse or risking the flesh-and-blood joint underneath. 

He said as much, apologetically, and Freeman signed back _”it’s fine, I can sleep in it. We’ll fix it tomorrow.”_

Sleep in it. He felt a stab of sympathy. That wouldn’t be comfortable at all. “I can help with your back though. It’s pretty common to get a sore spot from the gun’s weight. Can I…?” 

Again, the seconds ticked by before he got a blink and nod. 

He was reminded of an old computer. Make a request, wait… hear the hard drive go tick-tick-tick. An utterly unfair comparison when they were both running on fumes but- he’d once been younger than Freeman, and that was also unfair. 

He stood slow, moved slow and deliberate, put his right hand on Freeman’s shoulder while he was still in the sightline. The shirt was damp and cold with sweat. The skin under it was cold as well, cold and rough with old scarring. He knew the culprit—squid acid—by touch. It left a distinct bubbled pattern that not even the Vort serums could fully heal. 

Freeman flinched. 

He pressed into the flesh just between shoulder blade and spine, chasing the flinch through the shirt, refusing to let up on the gentle pressure. “Yeah, it’s gonna hurt for a sec but I promise this will help. You want to be done just raise your hand, we’ll be done.” 

The Vort doctors might have mastered biochemical and bioelectric medicine but it was like keeping a car engine tuned- the best oil change in the world wouldn’t fix a flat tire, and post-fall Earth was woefully short on trained physical therapists. But he’d been on the giving and receiving ends of enough informal back work to have an idea how to rub out the usual knots. 

If he’d been lugging around a giant suit of polymer armor all day, he’d be sore right about _here,_ he thought, applying pressure down the slope of the shoulder; that’s where the chest plate’s weight would ride. And when he’d first started lugging around a CP automatic, he’d bound up under his right shoulder blade, _there,_ a combination of the gun’s weight and bracing against its wicked kick. 

Freeman’s side twitched. He kept up the gentle pressure, moving slowly down between bone and spine, over and over until the muscle under his hands started to relax. Started to, but didn't quite complete the job, because the man who owned them was still sitting rigid and cold. 

He resisted the urge to sigh. Freeman would hear his frustration and that wasn't going to be helpful. So instead he started to talk. He'd talked this man into a coma on dozens of tram-rides- for him, more than two decades ago but for Freeman, if their patchwork timeline was correct, only a few months back. He couldn't remember what he'd said then but he had a good voice and imagination for fireside bs'ing. 

"You ever been fishing? Let me tell you, that's what I miss most. Had a buddy with an uncle with a cabin up in Wisconsin somewhere, on this little tiny lake, like you coulda fit that lake _inside_ the boat it was so small, but the fish..." he let his voice drop into a low, constant roll, let the syllables slur together. He would have put money on Freeman not being able to tell a trout from a goldfish, but that wasn't the point. No aliens, no gunfire, no work talk, just background old-world noise. As his hands worked with firm pressure over the chemical burn scars, down the big flat triangle of the upper back and shoulders, and finally along the mid-back spine, he talked fish, fishing tackle, favorite recipes, the kind of boat he wanted to own someday, legendary lakes and creeks, other people's fish stories- 

-and then he touched something wrong, because Freeman made a sound like a snake and his whole body jumped forward four inches, and the crowbar was suddenly there. 

Barney kept one hand on his shoulder, not restrictive but maintaining a firm contact, as his heart hammered in his chest and instinct told him to get far away. “Hey, sorry, didn’t mean to hit a raw spot. Did something get through today?” There was no blood on the filthy grey undershirt, no indication of a fresh wound. The crowbar slowly lowered back to the bench, the white knuckles on it unclenched. 

Freeman shook his head. He sat still and Barney let him, didn’t move to continue. Gordon seemed to need an extra couple minutes to shift gears from ‘danger’ to ‘all clear’ and Barney was fairly certain his life depended on his patience with that process. 

Finally he released the crowbar altogether, reached around and lifted the tail of the shirt from where it was tucked into the HEV waistband and hip plating. His skin was a cold white, a never-seen-the-sun white, and the bullet scar on his lower back a lump of discolored pink against it. He had a few of them--Barney had been present for enough HEV decanting to have seen a good deal--but this one he hadn’t noticed before. 

Small-caliber, he guessed. Not the fist-sized hole a CP bullet would punch. He wondered what the story was, why that mark in particular retained its sensitivity long after Black Mesa cocktails and Vort serums should have rendered it an unfeeling little callous. 

“Alright, we’ll be careful about that one,” he said. “You want me to keep going or be done?” 

By infinitesimal degrees, he felt Freeman move back to his original position, lean into his touch. If he hadn’t kept his hand on his shoulder he wouldn’t have noticed the slight increase in pressure against it. The quietest of ways to ask for more. 

Understanding Freeman wasn’t easy. Barney was tired from a sixteen-hour hunter chase, his hands were cramped from his own gunwork and from the dry and chill of the northern climate, and mentally he wanted a break from the focus required to track and interpret Gordon’s body language. Like massaging a viper, he thought, as he continued the fish story. He didn’t know all the rules, he didn’t know what hurt, and the only script said _if you scare me, I’ll bite you._

But he decided, feeling the shoulders loosen, he was willing to make the sacrifice of an hour’s sleep and sore hands because the man in front of him _shouldn’t_ be a viper, shouldn’t have to be treated like one, despite what they both believed in the moment. 

He’d seen that grab for the crowbar and the weapon come up, and it had taken all the willpower he’d possessed to hold still, but the reward of feeling Freeman unwind again had been worth the sudden racing heartbeat and visions of his own messy death. 

Trust, or at least a degree of self-awareness on both sides, had won out. 

Next time, maybe they’d make sure the crowbar was somewhere else before they started, make sure D0G was present and on watch, so Freeman could turn off his self-preservation subroutines for a little while. 

There would be a next time, Barney thought, as he tested Freeman’s range of motion in the right arm and found it vastly improved, the hand that had gone for the crowbar now relaxed and still. The man who’d helped save humanity deserved better than a begrudging tolerance and to be left in his own aches and pains. He might believe cold painful fearful solitude was the best this life had to offer, and him only pain or death to offer in return, and it’d be a job to prove him wrong, but it was a job Calhoun was willing to clock in for. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Same events, Freeman's point of view.

It had been a long day. 

He appreciated the exhaustion. He _liked_ the solid prodding of the broken disjointed HEV, reminding him with every uneven step he was still there, inside it. He didn't like it enough to keep brushing off Alyx's offers of help, though. He would have greatly appreciated getting the joint back to optimal functionality again but he could feel the thin brittle wall she held between her conscious mind and her memories. She didn't have a box to put that memory in, the way he would have- she lived out all her memories, all her self, all the time. 

So he kept them moving towards White Forest in a very direct line. The faster she got inside, the faster the intruding flashbacks of her 'death' at the hunter's claws would fade, and then he could put his own recall of that moment and its aftermath back in its box too. 

Entanglement. He maneuvered the stiff leg over a log. The Vortigaunts never did explain exactly what they'd _entangled._

Her pain, both her physical wounds from the day's skirmishes and her psychological scars, flared bright in his awareness. That data was now its own line in the lab notebook. Calhoun's breathing was labored. Fatigue, most likely, he hoped not well-hidden broken ribs. Two of their other gunners had been tossed by hunters and had suffered bruises and contusions, and a third had encountered a wasp nest. He had a running tally of probable injuries, impact on reaction speed, and his best estimate of their remaining ammunition all charted out. With Alyx he didn't have to guess, and as long as she controlled her memory, that made her his most reliable instrument. He didn't want her focused on fixing the HEV, he wanted her focused on the forest around them, where her hypersensitivity towards hunter presence would give them an edge. She'd been the first to identify the hunter numbers by sound and her bullets alone had killed two. 

So they ran a race back to White Forest, a race only he knew they were running. 

The three injured gunners went straight for Medical, while he and Alyx had a test of wills concerning who needed more immediate assistance. Her bleeding grazes lost her the battle and she went to clean up, the wall in her mind strengthening the closer she got to her father, their mutual entanglement fading with physical distance. 

As planned. 

He sat heavily on the bench and started the mechanical process of getting the HEV off. Upright he was fine, but he’d pulled something in his back at some point during the strider battle before Launch and it didn’t like being bent right now. The sixteen hours spent chasing down hunters over the rugged White Forest terrain hadn’t done the protesting muscles any favors, nor had the awkward gait required by the broken knee joint. 

There were solutions, muscle relaxers the Vorts mixed up, the simple job of telling the soldiers who made the patrol duty rosters that he wasn’t fit, but he was one of the youngest people in the base, save for Alyx, chronologically, and the absurdity of having a _back injury_ stopped him from indicating anything at all. That, and the pain wasn’t unwelcome. 

Move it _this_ way and it hurt sharp. Move it _that_ way and a dull ache permeated his spine. When he woke in darkness and took a deep breath and felt the discomfort, he knew he was still there, on Earth. Not locked away while the world turned by without him. 

Pain was not a sense permitted him outside time. 

Feeling, yes, he’d felt what they’d done, what he’d done, but not pain. Pain was real, human, present, and of Earth, and that data he could own, not the man who watched him from beyond reality and threatened to drag him back. 

_Functionality is reduced.  
Not worth fixing.  
The problem will persist.  
It'll solve itself with time. The body will adjust.  
Not without intermittent loss of efficiency.  
But balanced by increased awareness. Data from pain signaling is unique, provides baseline for other sensory input.  
The risk is too great.  
Risk of temporal disorientation is greater. _

The last thing he needed was to lose touch during a battle, to question if the traitorous mind was constructing its own reality again. _That_ was how people got killed, not from a mild sprain. A bullet, a claw through the HEV, a venom spider bite, those things were worth the medical attention, but this? No. This was just normal background static, a reminder he still lived in the flesh and had it under conscious control. Besides, everyone limped. Everyone had a bone-deep body hurt. He had felt the ache radiating from Alyx, where the reconnected muscle fibers were inflamed from the day's activities. He had watched Barney favoring his left leg, not a current injury but something in the past that had trained his body to adjust its motion. Such things were human. 

Then he tried to reach for the ankle joint, so he could disconnect the boot below the knee and slide his leg out, and he couldn’t reach. 

A sharp mechanical pain shot up his back and shoulder. 

_Move._

The body refused. 

_Functionality is reduced,_ he thought, grimly. This was going to present a problem. Disconnecting at the knee wasn’t possible, disconnecting at the ankle wasn’t possible. He rotated the ankle, tried to get a different angle, and saw its clasp was bent out of alignment as well, probably both by the same slashing blow he’d taken from a hunter foot-claw. It’d take a visit to Alyx’s workshop to get the joints and clasps working again. 

He’d slept in the HEV before. It wasn’t pleasant but it would provide a very solid reminder of which reality he was in. 

“Hey, back giving you trouble?” 

Freeman clamped down on his surprise and ran his mental tape backwards- yes, Calhoun had been standing there. He’d heard the man lean on the door and breathe, and then he’d forgotten all about him. Why? He should have known- when had he stopped tracking- behind him, in a blind spot, _not permitted-_

He made a visual check, verifying _yes, that’s Barney, unarmed, ally,_ and nodded once. He’d been distracted by mechanical problems and lost situational awareness. Unforgivable. Start again, this time with full data. 

He mapped the room, himself in it, cover, door, weapons- crowbar near at hand, as always, and his arsenal on the next bench. Gun-cleaning next, more mechanics- _focus._ He rotated his shoulders and reached for the ankle again, and his spine ground out a protest, cartilage between bone. 

_Control._ Just a machine, oil the joints later, the range was possible but the system kept up its refusal. Knee joint inoperable, ankle clasp verified both out of reach and out of alignment. 

He heard Calhoun’s sigh, a tired sound. “Can I help?” 

_No._

_Loss of functionality, long night ahead._

Alyx could help with the suit but he wasn’t going to bother her. With her out of range he’d freed up the attention normally devoted to controlling her input and set it to map out what was going on with his back. Could Barney assist in her place? 

He ran through the inked list of pros and cons, best-case increase in mobility in exchange for permitted contact, which wouldn’t be pleasant, but then little ever was. When he’d started ignoring the pulled muscle he hadn’t predicted its escalation this far. A miscalculation, one he would now pay for. 

_Fine._

He signed “Yes” over his shoulder, not looking up. 

He tracked Calhoun’s progress around the room and gave permission for him to inspect the knee. He was smart enough to approach from a visible angle. They all were, after that incident back in City 17. But the knee and ankle joints were beyond his mechanical skill, as Freeman knew they would be. 

“I can help with your back, though. It’s pretty common to get a sore spot from the gun’s weight. Can I…?” 

_No._

But the equation did not balance. Calhoun was more familiar with the body’s mechanics than with the suit’s mechanics. He’d had a few years to practice, and Freeman had seen the level of familiar physical contact the other rebels exhibited towards one another. Sore spots could cause deadly hesitation in those with a lower pain threshold or incomplete control, and when drugs were inadvisable or in short supply, they did what they could to fix one another. 

_Why refuse?_

Because he trusted Calhoun at his back, any day, in any battle, but he didn’t trust the man with the level of control that contact would grant. This wasn’t a Vortigaunt physician down in Medical, or even a human medic with a bandage, or a suture line, or a syringe of painkillers and serums. Mechanical manipulation took time, patience, trust, and it would take from him all the awareness he’d so carefully built up. He wouldn’t be able to think, but Calhoun didn’t know that, and he wasn’t asking because he wanted to make Freeman vulnerable to attack, he was asking because he wanted to help with repairs. 

_No,_ the body said, remembering too much, anticipating additional pain, weakness, loss of control. 

_Yes,_ he told it. Payment for miscalculation. Payment for having the audacity to betray him by refusing to move as directed. Payment for wanting Alyx out of his head more than he wanted himself out of the HEV. 

He nodded. 

Barney moved around him slowly, but with a firm hand on his shoulder. First contact. He appreciated that gesture, despite his body’s immediate desire to flee, because now he had a point of reference more reliable than sound. 

The man did know what he was doing, Freeman thought, as the pressure ran in a steady line down the sore place between his right shoulder blade and his neck. He drew a diagram of the musculature there in his mind’s eye, tracing Calhoun’s hands. The mental map kept his attention balanced between what he was feeling and what he was interpreting; a barrier same as his shirt between skin and calloused hands. 

His back spasmed, something like an electrical shock. Calhoun didn’t let up, kept up the pressure and followed the spasm along his spine. “Yeah, it’s gonna hurt for a sec but I promise this will help. You want to be done just raise your hand, we’ll be done.” 

Calhoun was right, it _did_ hurt, but it hurt in a very different way than what he’d been inflicting on himself. And Calhoun knew, somehow, the place where the HEV neck-shielding collar rode heaviest and where the hard angry knots formed under his right shoulder blade, from keeping the arm up and steady for hours. 

Calhoun worked over the knots, increasing pressure. Freeman’s jaw twitched as sensation ran like fire up his back. Unfamiliar and too deep to ignore, shredding his neat partition. He tensed, preparing to move--too much, too demanding--but then Barney started talking. 

Gordon hardly followed what he was saying but he held himself still. Permitting the touch was penitence for his own mistakes and he’d accepted the price he would have to pay but--he’d once trained himself to fall asleep to the sound of that voice, rudely, arrogantly shutting the man out when he’d tried so hard to be friendly. 

Barney had to remember that, so why was he launching into some inane fishing story now? Did he expect a response in trade for the assistance? He hadn’t been fishing, Freeman would bet, and certainly not in Wisconsin, since the world ended. How was this data applicable? 

But the body knew. 

The body remembered. Not that long ago, and he’d leaned back in the tramcar seat and let that rolling voice block out the rusted grind of bearings and computerized recorded messages. 

His shoulders sank, leaned back into that touch. If it were not the end of a long day, on little sleep, this the first rest since the hunters were sighted, he would have protested, he told himself. Gotten up and walked away. Still should, but _we’ve come this far._ His mind slowly cleared, the partition now gone completely, that voice bringing up data he didn’t want to revisit. 

The tramcar was neutral territory, no one’s responsibility and certainly not his; if it fell off its bearings _he_ wasn’t to blame. A little sliver of liminal space, being transported from the social web of dormitories down into the workday. He’d take responsibility then, where every step was watched, every word measured, thought tested. But not yet. Twenty minutes of mental silence while a stranger prattled in a pleasantly hypnotic tone about nothing at all relevant. And then back again, when the day’s problems could be closed up in their notebook but before the noise and press of the food court dinner crowds and congested dormitory halls. Another twenty minutes of mental flatline, blissfully refusing to engage with the man yammering himself hoarse in the corner. Mind quiet, the page blank before him, a very rare peace. 

Then the touch went down the spine someplace forbidden, and it wasn’t the tram anymore, it was the precipice and hot sun, rancid oil on the wind; hands holding his shoulders down, the tap of the gun barrel on suit plates, low laughter and the sound and impact- 

-the crowbar was icy cold in his hand. He’d take the left one first, that one had the gun. Catch the shoulder with the curved end, then rip through the throat. Continue motion, temple of the second man, spike down into thigh, then up, flip the weapon, and spike through chest. Retrieve firearm, one shot each-

The crowbar was cold because it was in his bare palm. No gloves. No HEV. Bench, cement floor, no sun. Indoors, the chill of a northern-latitude October, and the stink of sweat, gunpowder and evergreen. 

His heart pounded loud in his ears, breath a hiss through clenched jaw. The man behind him, hand still in contact, holding very, very still. 

Who and why was he so close. 

Oh. He came back to himself, to the voice. 

“Hey, sorry, didn’t mean to hit a raw spot. Did something get through today?” 

Through the suit. Today. Hunters. Killing hunters in the woods outside White Forest. He shook his head and rubbed his face, rough stubble on his hand, and made himself lower the crowbar. His fingers uncurled around it, reluctant but obedient. 

That was Barney Calhoun behind him, not two marines with a grudge. No more tram, no more Black Mesa. He rewound the tape, sense memory distorted by proprioceptive stimulation, and understood. Calhoun had hit the bullet scar on his lower back, put there during his botched execution. 

He swore in red ink, at himself, at the Marines, at stupid biological responses that still deceived him no matter how many times he beat them into submission. His hands clenched on the steel bench, edge driving into his palms. He’d raced Alyx’s flashbacks to White Forest, resigned himself to the broken HEV because he’d been afraid of this happening to her, and now here he was, chasing shards of memory around in circles and envisioning killing his only allies. 

_I want to live._

_You'll kill yourself trying._

Calhoun apparently had less of a survival instinct, because he was still standing there, his hand a firm familiar anchor on Freeman’s shoulder. He should have run. Should be across the room, weapon up, addressing the threat, but he wasn’t. 

Why. Freeman blinked and tried to focus on the oil stains between his feet. He needed to explain this. _Share your data. Can’t fault someone else’s ignorance if you never let them read the notebook._

He lifted the edge of his shirt, showing the scar. Calhoun would understand it if not its significance. Maybe later, some other day, he’d write it all out. After all this was over. No one needed to know right now that their lauded armored untouchable construct had an Achilles’ heel in a blind spot. 

“Alright, we’ll be careful about that one,” Barney said. “You want me to keep going or be done?” 

_Be done,_ he thought, but stopped himself. The body had failed him—or had he failed it? Whose fault were flashbacks anyhow, some misfiring of both the wet traitorous nerves and the higher intelligence?—but he didn’t want that to define this, whatever it was, the work Calhoun was doing. If he gave up now, he would forever suspect the memory of believing himself about to die had become entangled with this newly permitted sense of touch. Further experimentation would be deemed too risky, and that avenue of exploration closed forever. 

This too was human, he thought, as he let himself slowly move back, accept the hand on his shoulder again. Human, and painful, but a more pleasant pain. Calhoun took up the story again. The tram didn’t rematerialize. Instead he followed the pressure through sore muscles, able to visualize and track but without the rigid tension. This too was human, and this too he might own, something besides self-destruction to remind that self where it was. 

On Earth, inside time, every breath permitted a freedom from the void. 


End file.
